Los Angeles Lakers' Bronny James Responds to Fake Contract Report

Los Angeles Lakers guard Bronny James was drafted by the Lakers in the second round of the 2024 NBA Draft. The former USC Trojans guard Bronny James played in 27 games during his rookie season in Los Angeles. Bronny averaged 2.3 points per game.

In addition to playing in the NBA, Bronny spent more time in the G-League with the South Bay Lakers as the season progressed. In 11 games played with South Bay, he averaged 21.9 points, 5.4 assists, and 5.2 rebounds per game.

On Thursday, a fake report about Bronny’s NBA contract went viral, prompting a response from him.

Bronny James Replies to “NBA Centel”

Apr 19, 2025; Los Angeles, California, USA; Minnesota Timberwolves center Luka Garza (55) defends Los Angeles Lakers guard Bronny James (9) in the second half at Crypto.com Arena. Mandatory Credit: Jayne Kamin-Oncea-Imagn Images | Jayne Kamin-Oncea-Imagn Images

The X account “NBA Centel” posted on Thursday a fake story about Bronny James, saying he had declined a three-year $45 million extension with the Lakers. Bronny replied to this report, saying “disrespectful.” James’s current contract with the Lakers is four-years worth $7.8 million.

The NBA Centel X account has become famous over few years for creating fake headlines to fool people into believing it. They play off of the reliable NBA news account “NBA Central,” by using the same logo and post formatting. The account names are very similar and each have a blue verified checkmark, making it very easy to confuse someone quickly glancing over a headline.

disrespectful 🙅‍♂️ https://t.co/my0UXZm4p3
— Bronny (@BronnyJamesJr) June 26, 2025

If one gets fooled by a Centel post, it is called getting “Centel’d.” It doesn’t appear that Bronny did fall for this, but was just reacting to it instead.

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Bronny James Entering Year No. 2 in NBA

Bronny James is days away from getting his second season in the NBA underway. James confirmed earlier this offseason that he would participating with the Lakers summer league team starting in early July.

Bronny played for the Lakers summer league team last July as well. Now with a full season of professional experience under his belt, the Lakers will hope to see that Bronny has taken a step forward in his development.

The Lakers first summer league game will be on July 5 in the California Classic at Chase Center vs. the Golden State Warriors.

Los Angeles Lakers 2025-2026 Outlook

Apr 22, 2025; Los Angeles, California, USA; Los Angeles Lakers guard Luka Doncic (77) and Los Angeles Lakers forward LeBron James (23) leave a court after defeating the Minnesota Timberwolves 94-85 in game two of first round for the 2024 NBA Playoffs at Crypto.com Arena. Mandatory Credit: Kiyoshi Mio-Imagn Images | Kiyoshi Mio-Imagn Images

The Los Angeles Lakers will once again have high expectations in 2025-2026. The Lakers are coming off a wild 2024-2025 season. JJ Redick took over as coach and helped propel them to the No. 3 seed in the Western conference.

The craziest thing that happened to the Lakers and the NBA in general last season was the massive trade between the Lakers and Dallas Mavericks that sent Luka Doncic to Los Angeles for Anthony Davis. The Luka Doncic and LeBron James duo got bounced in the first round of the playoffs to the Minnesota Timberwolves, but now they have a full offseason to build around those two players.

With LeBron James entering year 23 in the league, the clock is ticking to win now, although having Doncic does change things for the long term future.